Starting a colony, numbers

[Proto]

Hello all,

 

possibly a loaded question but just looking for general opinions/experiences.

 

What population size would you recommend someone who is starting a new colony of shrimp?

 

I'm intending to start a colony of caridina wilkinsi and thinking 10 shrimp but with them being a native species and pond grown may not be as hardy to aquarium environments like other popular species so may experience some initial drop offs? (any one able to chime in with native species and survivability?)  

 

Share you experiences with new colonies.

[fishmosy]

With natives, I like to start with minimum of 20. This ensures that it isn't a problem if there are some losses, especially with wild caught shrimp. Plus I like to have my tanks looking busy.

If you are going to be doing some selective breeding, 20 instead of 10 will give you more choice as to which patterns/colours/sizes to work with.

The disadvantage to getting more is if you get the shrimp breeding, you can quickly boost your population above the carrying capacity of the tank. i.e. there is less margin for error when it comes to controlling the size of your population. Assuming you have a 50:50 sex ratio, the difference is potentially 10 pairs breeding vs. 5 pairs. And if they drop their shrimplets at roughly the same time, your population can explode overnight. I think this is a good problem to have because the solution is ...... MORE TANKS. YAY!

[fishmosy]

Forgot to add, I'm assuming you will be using a tank in the order of 20-60L. If you are going to use a bigger tank, why not go more shrimp?

[Proto]

Forgot to add, I'm assuming you will be using a tank in the order of 20-60L. If you are going to use a bigger tank, why not go more shrimp?

 

approx 80L of water required to fill (not including substrate, driftwood, plants, etc tank is closer to 100L it's been a plant growing tank/holiday tank while other tanks have been rescaped)

 

And if they drop their shrimplets at roughly the same time, your population can explode overnight. 

My first tank (guppy/endler hybrids) had 4 males and 6 females and by the end of the first month there were over 100 fry (given the reports of the mothers eating their fry...I just don't see that happening), it just kept growing exponentially and I didn't have enough sources to off load them without euthanizing until I started doing separate tanks by gender (and even then....months of terrible). So I'm always a bit wary of being too eager with new stock since a genocide may follow and that's no fun.

On the flip side some of the other species I have never get so out of balance despite not being separated by gender, but population explosions always make me think back to the early days and I just don't want to be in that sort of position again.

 

From reading around various sites though with shrimp it seems 50/50 they're either prolific breeders or the colony is dead/struggling to hold on so it's hard to guage a "safe" number where the colony can grow but isn't going to explode at a crazy pace and leave me with more shrimp than I can take care of at the moment.

[fishmosy]

The good thing about shrimp is they are fairly easy to get rid of. If worse comes to worst, you could sell them (I hate to say it) as feeders. Wilkinsi is uncommon though, so you should have no trouble selling some on.

[NoGi]

When I had yellow cherries, I only started with around 8 in a little cube. They didn't do much until I chucked them into my 4ft. Then holy moly, they bred like rabbits.

[jayc]

As many as you can afford. The good thing is you don't need many. I started with 4 black cherries. It's too difficult to count how many I have now. 

 

But avoid buying all from the same source (if you can). 

Diversify your gene pool. Single sources are likely to be all inter-related.

But you might not have this luxury with the Wilkinsi, there might not be many sellers.

You can always add more from a different source at a later date.

[fishmosy]

If the wilkinsi are wild caught or even first gen, then there shouldn't really be a problem with a limited gene pool.

I hate to think how interrelated the gene pool is for Australian cherries or CRS.

[Proto]

But avoid buying all from the same source (if you can). 

Diversify your gene pool. Single sources are likely to be all inter-related.

But you might not have this luxury with the Wilkinsi, there might not be many sellers.

You can always add more from a different source at a later date.

 

While I agree and know where you're coming from, with Wilkinsi at least it appears all the ones for sale in various online stores all trace right back to www.liverpoolcreekaquariums.com so I'm probably not really going to have much luck with sourcing variety there (although given their natural wild distribution that probably wasn't going to be highly likely to begin with) 

[jayc]

On second thoughts, I doubt you have to worry about it for Wilkinsi.

They are about as diverse in the Gene pool as you can get, being so close to wild caught.